Setting Boundaries Isn’t Selfish, and 7 More Pieces of Good Advice That Really Resonated With Us This Year

If you're reading this, then (Elle Woods voice) we did it! We survived another year. There was a sense of hope heading into 2021—after a year of being beat down by the pandemic, we started to think that things were getting under control. Then Space Jam 2 came out, and we all began to sink into hopelessness again . (JK, we started to feel hopeless again due to things like the capitol riots and people not getting vaccinated—though admittedly SJ2 didn't help). All we can really say is that 2022 is going to be... a year. And in the grand tradition of celebrating the new year, the last episode of The Well+Good Podcast for 2021 looks back on all the quotes and moments from the show that really resonated with us.

"We invite you to join us on this trip down The Well+Good Podcast year one memory lane," says Ella Dove, Well+Good's director of creative development. "Trust us when we say putting together this episode was a labor of love—and laughs. There was a lot to choose from, we spoke to 89 guests, nine Well+Good team members, recorded (and re-recorded) nearly 6,000 minutes of interview.”

One standout moment from the year is from the episode on setting boundaries with writer, wellness coach, and a licensed therapist, Minaa B who encouraged readers to not accept the false narrative that setting boundaries is selfish because doing so will make it even harder to erect and uphold yours. For beginners, "learning to say no is one fundamental part of erecting boundaries," she says. But another way to create healthy limits is to teach people how to show up in a relationship with you. "Sometimes we have these rules for what that looks like,” she explains. “And so if I'm in conversation with someone and he starts screaming at me, my boundary will be to say: ‘Please don't scream at me while we're having a conversation.’"

Along similar lines, a favorite episode for  Taylor Camille, Well+Good's senior producer, was an early one about making and maintaining friendships as an adult. "We touched on a lot of things—from loneliness to meeting people when you're not able to be outside meeting people," she says. In the episode, Camille spoke to two influential voices in friendship: authors and co-hosts of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, whose best advice may just be focusing less on finding a BFF and more on cultivating big friendships. “A big friendship is one that has lasted a long time, that has maybe endured some big changes or shifts and difficulties that involves both people showing up, and really giving of themselves, and being vulnerable, and making an effort to know, and be known," says Friedman.

Other favorite moments include conversation with Director of Clinical Content at Talkspace, Amy Cirbus, and Founder of Therapy For Black Girls, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, about how therapy is for everyone, insight from Founder and Executive Director of Hike Clerb, Evelynn Escobar, about why we move, and our talk with Dr. Meredith Brower, a fertility specialist at Kindbody, about biological timelines and how to extend or optimize your own if you so choose.

To hear all of our favorite podcast moments of the year, listen to the full episode above, on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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